The Lost City of Giants - Iram: Atlantis of The Sands
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00:00In the fall of 1930, legendary British explorer Bedrom Thomas set out on his most historic
00:27journey.
00:29He would attempt to become the first European to cross the daunting Rabaulkhali, that inhospitable
00:35Arabian desert, known intimidatingly to English speakers as the Empty Quarter.
00:41Covering an area of some 250,000 square miles, stretching through Saudi Arabia, Oman, the
00:49United Arab Emirates, and Yemen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, the Empty Quarter
00:55is larger than the country of France.
00:57The largest sand desert in the world in terms of volume, with 800-foot-tall dunes blocking
01:04the path of would-be travelers.
01:06But if any European was going to be able to cross it, it was probably Bedrom Thomas.
01:13Born in Somerset, England, in 1892, Thomas had been sent to Mesopotamia during World
01:20War I, where he quickly took to the area and its people, and they to him, fighting alongside
01:26local forces, and even becoming a high-ranking political advisor to the Sultan of Oman.
01:33He knew the area and what he was in for.
01:36He knew how to survive.
01:38So, on October 6, 1930, he set off from Salalah on the coast of Oman in the company of twenty-five
01:46Bedouin guides to begin his historic attempt.
01:50As he later described, they struck northwards over the Kar mountains, some three thousand
01:56feet high, through frankincense groves and thence into the great unknown steppe.
02:02For the next fifty-nine days, Thomas was neither seen nor heard from.
02:08In fact, his own government was unaware of where he was or what he was doing, and would
02:13likely have expressly forbidden him from making the attempt, if they had known about it, leaving
02:19Thomas to conduct the mission in secret.
02:22If things took a turn for the worst, there would be no rescue party.
02:27Finally, on February 5, 1931, Thomas appeared in Doha, Qatar, healthy and unharmed, and
02:36with an incredible bounty taken from the desert in Tau.
02:40On his way across, he had collected over four hundred natural history specimens, including
02:46twenty-one species new to Western science.
02:49Yet, natural history specimens were not all Thomas had brought back from the desert.
02:56No, his journey had seen him obtain something even more incredible, a story, one told to
03:02him by his Bedouin guides, which had been passed down through generations, the story
03:08of an ancient lost city in the desert, hidden beneath the sand.
03:13In the words of one of the guides, it was a great city.
03:17Our fathers have told us that it existed of old, a city rich in treasure, with date gardens
03:25and a fort of red silver.
03:27It now lies buried beneath the sands, some few days to the north.
03:32With no time to spare in his grueling attempt to cross the desert, Thomas had been unable
03:38to pursue the lost city, and though he intended to return to pick up the chase, he was never
03:45able.
03:46He did, however, record the story as it was presented to him in his seminal book, Arabia
03:52Felix, where it quickly caused a stir among European audiences.
03:58One man who became particularly enamored with the lost desert city was none other than T.
04:04Lawrence, more famously known as Lawrence of Arabia.
04:08To his friends, Lawrence wrote, I am convinced that the remains of an ancient Arab civilization
04:14are to be found in that desert.
04:17I have been told by the Arabs that the ruined castles of the great Kinad, son of Kinad,
04:23have been seen by wandering tribes in the region.
04:26There is always some substance in these Arab talies.
04:30Lawrence even made plans to go to the desert and search for the lost city, but he never
04:36got the chance.
04:38After he tragically died in a motorcycle accident in 1935, however, before he died, Lawrence
04:46gave the mysterious city a nickname, which stuck.
04:51He dubbed it Atlantis of the Sands.
04:53Could this lost city really exist?
04:56An Atlantis of the Sands, just waiting to be discovered.
05:01Within the Quran, there is a record of an ancient tribe, which has long confused historians
05:07and scholars.
05:09Known as the Ad, the tribe of an area called Iram, they do not appear in the texts of Judaism
05:16or Christianity.
05:18Curious, since all three of these Abrahamic religions are built upon the same history
05:24and thus contain mention of the same ancient tribes and events.
05:28Think King Solomon, Moses and the Egyptian pharaoh, Noah and the flood, and so on, are
05:35all in the holy books of all three traditions.
05:39But not the Ad.
05:41Most famously, the tribe appears in the Quran when Muhammad warns unbelievers,
05:46Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with that the tribe of Iram who had lofty
05:51pillars, the likes of which were not produced in all the land?
05:56Many scholars have asked why the tribe of Iram would not have been mentioned elsewhere,
06:01if they really did construct things, the likes of which were not produced in all the
06:06land.
06:07Did the Ad really exist?
06:10And if they did, then what happened to them?
06:13To this second question, the Quran provides an extraordinary answer.
06:19According to the Quran, the Ad of Iram was a tribe that existed on the Arabian Peninsula
06:24after the flood of Noah.
06:26There, they constructed a powerful kingdom, using their vast wealth and expertise to build
06:33monuments on every high place and build palaces as if they will live forever.
06:40They were not afraid to assert their power over their neighbors, viciously conquering
06:45many on the peninsula.
06:47As the Quran states about the Ad, And when you seize, you seize as tyrants.
06:54This immense power led to arrogance.
06:56The people of Iram became idolatrous and wicked.
07:00That was Ad.
07:02They denied the signs of their Lord, disobeyed his messengers, and followed the command of
07:08every stubborn tyrant.
07:10Because of this, Alas sent the prophet Hud to warn the people of Iram to renounce their
07:16wicked ways.
07:17Yet, the people of Iram were unmoved.
07:21In an attempt to convince the Ad that Hud was speaking the truth, Allah then sent a
07:26terrible drought, which afflicted Iram.
07:29At its height, Hud pleaded with the Ad, but still, they would not listen.
07:36Finally, the Ad saw cloud formation approaching Iram and believed the rains had come at last,
07:43that they were saved.
07:45How wrong they were!
07:47Then, when they saw the torment as a dense cloud approaching their valleys, they said
07:52happily, This is a cloud bringing us rain.
07:56But Hud replied, No, it is what you sought to hasten, a fierce wind carrying a painful
08:03punishment.
08:05It was not rain these clouds were bringing, but a sandstorm, and the result was cataclysmic.
08:13As the Quran describes, And as for Ad, they were destroyed by a furious, bitter wind which
08:20a lion leashed on them nonstop for seven nights and eight days, so that you would have seen
08:26its people lying dead like trunks of uprooted palm trees.
08:30Do you see any of them left alive?
08:33And thus ends the story of the Ad of Iram, their fate, their city, according to the Quran,
08:40obliterated by a sandstorm, buried beneath the desert sands as though they had never existed.
08:48The question asked by many scholars is whether this story is merely a rhetorical tool, an
08:53allegory meant as a not-so-veiled threat against turning away from God, or whether there really
08:59could be the remains of an ancient once-powerful kingdom buried beneath the Arabian sands.
09:06At least one thing is for sure.
09:08While the Ad of Iram may not exist in the other Abrahamic traditions, the Quran is not
09:14the only place their story is told.
09:17During the 9th century CE, the earliest copy of what would become one of the world's most
09:22popular and long-standing books was being assembled in Syria.
09:28It would bring together the earliest myths and folk-tales of Persia into an extraordinary
09:33compilation, which would become known as Al-Flayla wa-Layla, One Thousand and One Nights.
09:41The basic premise of the book was simple.
09:44A Persian king discovers his wife has been unfaithful and has her executed.
09:49He then marries a succession of virgins, but has them each executed the morning after the
09:55wedding before they have a chance to be unfaithful.
09:59Eventually, the king marries a woman named Scheherazade, who, on the night of their marriage,
10:06begins to tell him an incredible story, which she does not finish.
10:11The next morning, the king, desperate to hear the story's conclusion, does not have Scheherazade
10:18executed.
10:20That night, she finishes the story, then begins another.
10:25This repeats every night, each of the stories she tells representing an ancient Persian myth,
10:31until, after One Thousand and One Nights, the king decides to spare her life, and the
10:37two live happily ever after.
10:41After its initial creation in the 9th century, the book's compilation grew and expanded over
10:46the years based on the religious and political climate of the time.
10:52In the late 9th and 10th centuries, stories were added from Iraq.
10:57In the 13th, stories from Egypt and Syria entered.
11:01As this continued, century after century, the book became a sort of living history piece
11:08of the myths and stories of the Middle East.
11:11The book finally appeared in Europe in 1704, first in French, and then, after its popularity
11:19exploded, in English, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, and Russian before the end of the
11:2718th century.
11:29It remains in print all over the world to this day, helping to shape our modern understanding
11:34of the history of the region.
11:37There is one story within One Thousand and One Nights, which warrants particular attention.
11:43The story of a man named Abdullah bin Ali Calibah.
11:47In the story, he goes out into the desert in search of his lost camel, whereupon he
11:53discovers an incredible deserted city.
11:56I dismounted and hobbling my dromedary, and, composing my mind, entered into the city.
12:04Now when I came to the castle, I found it had two vast gates never in the world was
12:09seen there like for size inlaid with all manner of jewels and jacents, white and red,
12:16yellow and green.
12:19Beholding this, I marvelled with great marvel and thought the case mighty wondrous.
12:25Then, entering the citadel in a flutter of fear, and dazed with surprise and a fright,
12:31I found it long and wide, and therein were lofty palaces laid out in pavilions, all built
12:39of gold and silver, and inlaid with many coloured jewels and jacents and chrysalites
12:45and pearls.
12:47And the door leaves in the pavilions were like those of the castle for beauty, and their
12:52floors were strewn with great pearls and balls, no smaller than hazelnuts, of musk and ambergris
12:59and saffron.
13:01Now when I came within the heart of the city, and saw therein no created beings of the sons
13:06of Adam, I was near swooning and dying for fear.
13:10Moreover, I looked down from the great roofs of the pavilion chambers, and their balconies
13:17and sewer-rivers running under them, and in the main streets were fruit-laden trees and
13:22tall ponds, and the manner of their building was one brick of gold and one of silver.
13:30So I said in myself, doubtless, this is the paradise promised for the world to come.
13:37Returning from the lost city, Abdullah immediately seeks to inform local government officials
13:43of his incredible find, describing to them in detail the unbelievable things he had seen,
13:50and even showing them some of the pearls and balls of musk and ambergris and saffron.
13:56The officials, amazed by the tale but skeptical, send for another man, an expert in such things,
14:04and ask him if he had ever heard of such a magnificent city.
14:08To this he immediately replies, Yes, O commander of the faithful, this is Iram with pillars
14:16decked and dyed, the like of which was never made in the lands, and the builder was Shaddad,
14:23son of Ad the Greater.
14:25The man then regales Abdullah and the officials with the story of the mighty king Shaddad
14:29and his city of Iram of the pillars.
14:33Shaddad reigned over the earth alone.
14:35Now he was fond of reading in antique books, and happening upon the description of the
14:41world to come, and of paradise, with its pavilions and pillories and trees and fruits and so
14:47forth.
14:49His soul moved him to build the like thereof in this world.
14:53After the fashion of four said, now under his hand were a hundred thousand kings, each
14:59ruling over a hundred thousand chiefs, commanding each a hundred thousand warriors.
15:06So he called these all before him and said to them, I find in ancient books and annals
15:11a description of paradise as it is to be in the next world, and I desire to build me its
15:17like in this world.
15:19For many years they toiled, constructing this city of paradise for their all-powerful ruler,
15:26until finally they went to the king and told him his city was ready.
15:31Yet, before the mighty king could even reach the city, disaster struck.
15:37Shaddad set out with his host, rejoicing in the attainment of his desire, till there remained
15:43but one day's journey between him and Iram of the pillars.
15:48Then alas sent down on him and on the stubborn unbelievers with him a mighty rushing sound
15:53from the heavens of his power, which destroyed them all with its vehement clamor, and neither
16:00Shaddad nor any of his company set eyes on the city.
16:04Moreover, Elab lauded out the road which led to the city, and it stands in its stead unchanged,
16:12before Shaddad could enjoy the spoils of his paradise created on earth.
16:16He and his city were destroyed, lost to the Arabian sands forever.
16:22It seems, upon a close reading, that the story of Abdullah bin Ali Calibah both confirms
16:29and expands upon the story of the Ad of Iram in the Quran.
16:34Could there really be not only a lost city buried under the sands of the Arabian desert,
16:39but a lost city of unimaginable wealth, a paradise lost?
16:45For years, centuries even, many scholars asserted that the legendary lost city of Iram
16:51was not real, that it was merely a product of religious allegory and fantasy fiction.
16:58That is, until the 1970s, when everything changed.
17:03In 1964, an archaeologist from the University of Rome named Paolo Mathe launched a mission
17:10to a site in northern Syria, an area called Mardik, some 35 miles southwest of Aleppo.
17:18For the first few years, Mathe and his team found very little at the site, save for a
17:24few scattered fragments, which encouraged them to keep excavating.
17:29Finally, in 1968, came the breakthrough they were hoping for.
17:36That year, they uncovered a statue dedicated to the goddess Eshtar, which bore an ancient
17:42inscription, which read, Ibbit Lem, King of Ebla.
17:47This was a stunning find.
17:50Ebla was the name of a city spoken about in the texts of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians,
17:56and Akkadians, but never identified in modern times until now.
18:02Recognizing the importance of the discovery, Mathe and his team slowly continued excavating
18:07the site over a period of years, uncovering numerous stemples, walls, gates, and other
18:15impressive buildings, which had once made up the city of Ebla.
18:20What happened next, however, would blow away everything they had previously found.
18:26In 1974, Mathe and his team were removing debris from an ancient palace when they discovered
18:3442 clay tablets, which appeared to be part of some sort of palace archives.
18:40As it turned out, that was only the start.
18:43There, beneath the earth, were many thousands of clay tablets stored neatly on shelves that
18:50had collapsed in a fire, which seemed to have destroyed the palace.
18:55The fire, it appeared, had been a stroke of luck for archaeologists and historians,
19:01as it had preserved the clay tablets as if they were in a kiln.
19:05The tablets even had clay catalog tags still attached to them for identification.
19:11All told, archaeologists uncovered some 17,000 tablets and fragments containing an unfathomable
19:18treasure trove of information about the city of Ebla and the surrounding region at the
19:23time.
19:24Most incredibly, the tablets contained detailed information on Ebla's neighbors and trading
19:30partners, including Damascus, Gaza, Byblos, Lebanon, and the Canaanites, providing behind-the-scenes
19:40historical information on these places at that time, on kingdoms and civilizations, which
19:46were known about in modern times, but never in this level of detail.
19:52It was, according to many, one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century.
19:59Included in the historical record of these neighbors and trading partners was one place
20:03in particular which jumped out at archaeologists, the city of Irem.
20:08The tablets referred to it as Legendary Irem, the City of Towers, seeming to confirm that
20:15the Irem who had lofty pillars in the Qur'an and lofty palaces in One Thousand and One
20:21Nights had indeed existed at one time.
20:25The tablets even described Irem as a place of black magic and idolatry, seeming to confirm
20:31Irem's purported wicked ways in both books.
20:35After denying its existence for so long, archaeologists had, for the first time, found tangible proof
20:43of Irem.
20:44The question is, if there is proof that Irem existed, where is it now?
20:50What happened to it, and could it really be buried under sand?
20:55Ebla was once a lost city, now found.
20:59Could we do the same with Irem?
21:02In 1948, a geological party from Petroleum Development Ltd. of Oman was conducting a
21:08survey in the vast, desolate expanse of the Empty Quarter.
21:13In the country's Dhofar province, when they came upon something most curious, as they
21:19were approaching the ancient oasis of Shisr, they noticed in the distance what, at first,
21:25they believed to be a large white cliff.
21:28But as they got closer, they realized that it was not a cliff at all, but the wall of
21:34a ruined fort, sitting above a quarry-like cave, which led down into the darkness of
21:40the earth.
21:42The area around this fort was totally deserted, leaving the geologists to wonder if and when
21:48the area had been a population center-warrantying a fort, and what had happened to it.
21:54But because they possessed no modern archaeological equipment, and because they were more concerned
21:59with getting water from Shisr's ancient well on their difficult journey in the desert,
22:04they did not pursue questions about this fort any further, simply making a note of it and
22:10moving on.
22:11Interestingly, Betram Thomas had, on his own journey across the Empty Quarter in 1930-1931,
22:21himself stopped at the Shisr oasis and, in fact, had made a note of a ruined fort at
22:27the site.
22:28However, his guides had told him that the fort had been built by a local sheik only
22:33a few hundred years earlier, and so, like the Petroleum Development Limited geologists,
22:41Thomas simply made a note of it and moved on.
22:43So, was this fort really only a few hundred years old?
22:48Or was it something much more?
22:51The question would remain unanswered, the mystery unsolved, for more than 40 years.
22:59Nicholas Clapp was a writer, filmmaker, and amateur archaeologist who rose to prominence
23:06in the early 1990s when a self-described crazy idea totally changed the archaeology
23:12game forever.
23:14As a boy, Clapp had become enamored with the idea of a lost city under the Arabian Sands
23:21after reading Betram Thomas' Arabia Felix.
23:24By the time he had reached adulthood, Clapp had resolved that where Thomas had failed
23:29to return to the area and find the city, he would pick up the chase, and he would succeed.
23:36But first came the crazy idea.
23:40In the early 1980s, Clapp would, out of the blue, call NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
23:47in Pasadena, California, a place famous for its satellite radar imagery.
23:54To the scientists who answered the phone, Clapp would ask a simple, if unheard of, question
24:00if a city was buried in the desert, could you see it by this radar?
24:05Somehow, Clapp convinced the scientists at NASA, not only that he wasn't a crank caller,
24:11but to take his idea seriously.
24:14In fact, they agreed to scan the empty quarter with a special radar system, which could see
24:20through sand, and pick out subsurface geological features, during their next shuttle radar
24:26flight in 1984.
24:29Using the images obtained on this flight, Clapp and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists
24:34noticed something astonishing.
24:36There, stretching throughout the region and across the empty quarter was an extensive
24:42network of ancient trade routes, roads where hundreds of thousands of traveling camels
24:47had packed down the Earth's surface.
24:50Now hidden under sand, Clapp was convinced that these ancient trade routes held the secret
24:55to a city lost under the sands.
24:58He surmised that where these trade routes converged would have been ancient population
25:03centers, the centers of trade along a trade route.
25:08And in fact, when he looked closer, Clapp noticed that a great number of these ancient
25:13roads seemed to converge on the same place the Shisro Oasis.
25:18Armed with this information, Clapp enlisted the services of an American archaeologist
25:23named Juris Zarens and a British explorer named Serrano Feehan, and together, they headed
25:30to the area to find out what was going on.
25:34Almost immediately, as the team began digging, they knew they were onto something.
25:40First, they discovered that the locals who had told Bitram Thomas that Shisro's fort
25:45was only a few hundred years old were correct.
25:49The fort only was a few centuries old, except it was built on the rubble of something much,
25:55much older.
25:57As they began to excavate, they started to uncover the remains of a large ancient settlement,
26:03which remarkably, they dated at nearly 5,000 years old.
26:09At the center of this ancient settlement was something truly spectacular.
26:15There stood a huge and imposing permanent fortress, ringed by eight walls, each of them
26:21some ten to twelve feet high and sixty feet long, and each corner of the fortress stood
26:28a massive tower, some ten feet in diameter and thirty feet tall.
26:34Based on what they found within this fortress, it appeared to be a royal residence for the
26:39king, a processing and storage facility for the ancient city, and a record-keeping center
26:45for an ancient center of trade.
26:48There was more, though.
26:50As they continued their work, archaeologists discovered what had become of this once-thriving
26:56settlement.
26:57It seemed that the city had been built on top of a limestone cavern.
27:01Before, eventually, the city's weight caused it to collapse into a giant sinkhole, destroying
27:08the city and forever burying it under sand.
27:12As much as it pained them, archaeologists were forced to admit that the parts of the
27:17city, which had disappeared into this sinkhole, were likely lost forever, leaving them only
27:23to wonder and speculate what other mysteries might be revealed, if only they were able
27:29to recover the unrecoverable.
27:32But for Nicholas Clapp, no further discoveries were required.
27:37He believed the mystery had been solved, that he had gotten what he'd come for.
27:42Here was a powerful ancient economic center, marked by imposing towers, far beyond what
27:48should have been technologically possible at the time, destroyed by a cataclysmic event
27:54and buried under sand.
27:57For Clapp, this could mean only one thing, that the lost city of Arim had finally been
28:02found.
28:04Ranulf Fian agreed, writing a book in 1992, which claimed the long-standing mystery had
28:11been solved.
28:13The book was titled Atlantis of the Sands.
28:16Could this really have been the long-lost city of Arim, found?
28:21And if so, what other untold treasures of the once-mighty city might be lost deep beneath
28:27the earth, and what other ancient mysteries might be solved, or revealed?
28:34Might it be the gold and jewels of Arim's paradise on earth, described in One Thousand
28:40and One Nights?
28:42Or things the likes of which were not produced in all the land, as described in the Quran?
28:48Or might it even be something more?
28:51One day in 2004, a neurologist and amateur archaeologist named Dabdallah Al-Sayed was
28:58out casually searching the Herat Khyber lava fields in Saudi Arabia with a hobbyist group,
29:04which he led, when he discovered an unusual three-foot-tall stone wall.
29:09Though perhaps peculiar, he did not think much of it at the time.
29:14It was not until 2008, when new and emerging technology totally changed his view on the
29:20situation.
29:22Using Google Earth, which was only then becoming widely available, Al-Sayed was able to realize
29:29the true extent of these curious structures in the area, which he began calling gates.
29:35There was not one, not two or three, nor even dozens, but hundreds of them, spread across
29:42a vast area.
29:44As he described, I was literally stunned and could not sleep that night, flying like a
29:51bird all over the Herat from one enigmatic structure to another.
29:56How come we passed by these structures without appreciating their design?
30:01Realizing these structures would require deeper examination than he was qualified to give,
30:07Al-Sayed sent the photos he'd pulled from Google Earth to David Kennedy, an archaeologist
30:12at the University of Western Australia and a man who had spent 40 years documenting stone
30:18structures and funeral monuments on the Arabian Peninsula.
30:23Over the course of the next decade, Kennedy would search for and document these stone
30:28gates, finally reporting in 2017 that he and his team had discovered some 400 of the structures,
30:36spanning from several hundred to several thousand feet long, some up to 30 feet thick.
30:43Despite his many years of experience, Kennedy was perplexed as to the purpose of these huge
30:48structures.
30:50In his words, they don't look like structures where people would have lived, nor do they
30:55look like animal traps, or for disposing of dead bodies.
31:00It's a mystery as to what their purpose would have been.
31:03By 2021, the mystery had only deepened as researchers reported having found over 1,000
31:10of the structures, which they were now calling mustatils, the Arabic word for rectangle,
31:17over an area of nearly 100,000 square miles.
31:22Even more astonishingly, archaeologists dated the structures at over 7,000 years old, making
31:29them older than Stonehenge.
31:31The more mustatils that were found, the more baffled archaeologists became.
31:37What were these structures for, they asked, and why were some highly visible, while others
31:43seemed almost hidden?
31:45Moreover, how were the ancients able to communicate how to build these imposing structures over
31:51such great distances, and how had they managed to build some on the sides of mountains and
31:57volcanoes?
31:59It is an archaeological mystery, to be sure, but then again, it is but one of a growing
32:05number of archaeological mysteries popping up around the region in recent years.
32:11Consider, for example, the enormous stone circle found in the Golan Heights in 2015,
32:18revealed to be the same age as Stonehenge.
32:22It is actually five circles, made up of huge stones between six and eight feet in height.
32:29In Hebrew, it is known as the Wheel of Giants, and perhaps with good reason.
32:35At over 500 feet in diameter, it is almost twice as big as Stonehenge.
32:42David Kennedy points out that similar big circles have been found throughout the region,
32:47all with a similar appearance too close to be a coincidence.
32:51Who could have built these massive stone circles, and why?
32:55Or consider the ancient funerary avenues found in 2022, stretching for thousands of miles
33:02across the Arabian Peninsula, ancient corridors linking oases and pastures, bordered by thousands
33:10of burial monuments.
33:13What ancient civilization could have created these ancient superhighways stretching for
33:17so many thousands of miles?
33:20In the opinion of one archaeologist who works in the region, the archaeological finds coming
33:26out of these regions have the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the
33:31early history of the Middle East.
33:33But how?
33:35Some have an answer.
33:37According to some, an explanation for the giant stone structures, buried cities, and
33:43extensive roadways discovered across the Arabian Peninsula can be found where the mystery of
33:49the lost city of Irem started, in the pages of the Quran.
33:54There, the Ad of Irem are described not only as a mighty tribe of imposing pillars and
34:00economic might, but as huge and powerful individuals, large enough to uproot trees
34:07with their bare hands and carve houses into mountains.
34:12Who is mightier than us in strength?
34:15The Ad ask?
34:16Perhaps their giant stature allowed them to build not only the paradise city of Irem,
34:21but the huge stone structures and superhighways found across the Arabian Peninsula, across
34:27deserts, on the sides of mountains, and lava fields.
34:33Interestingly, while the Ad of Irem do not appear in the Jewish or Christian Bibles,
34:39they sound an awful lot like something that does the Nephilim.
34:43In the Book of Genesis, the Nephilim are mysterious beings with enormous size and strength, described
34:50as the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men, giants so large that in
34:57their presence, humans became like grasshoppers in our own sight.
35:02And so we were in their sight.
35:05Could the Nephilim have been the Ad of Irem?
35:08The connection goes further and gets more mysterious.
35:12Genesis describes the Nephilim as mighty men who were of old.
35:17In Islam, there is a group of ancient deities called the Djinn, who are also known as the
35:22Old Ones.
35:24Like the Nephilim, the Djinn were said to have procreated with humans, and, according
35:30to some, it was these Djinn that built the city of Irem.
35:34Interestingly, the ancient Arabic word for pillar, as in Irem of the Pillars, has another
35:40meaning Old One.
35:43Was Irem of the Pillars really the city of Old Ones?
35:47And were the Ad of Irem really the Djinn?
35:51Even further, the giant stone mustatils found across the Arabian Peninsula are known to
35:56local Bedouin tribes as the works of the Old Men.
36:00Could these massive stone structures, and perhaps the ancient superhighways which connect
36:05them, really have been built by these Old Men?
36:09These ancient giants are recorded in the Abrahamic traditions as the Djinn, the Ad of Irem, and
36:16the Nephilim.
36:17To answer these questions, one might have to look outside of the official canon of the
36:22Abrahamic religions, to another ancient holy book, one which tells a story so dramatic,
36:30it was banned from the Christian Bible.
36:33It is known as the Book of Enoch.
36:35If you want to know what does this book reveal about ancient giants, and the history not
36:40only of the Arabian Peninsula, but of humanity itself, you can watch our video on the Book
36:47of Enoch.
36:49And if you want to learn more about giants, we have an entire documentary, showing dozens
36:55of old newspaper articles talking about the discoveries of giants, together with many
37:00stories of historical figures encountering giants in remote places.
37:06The link is in the top end comment and the description.
37:10Thank you for watching.
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